{"id":618,"date":"2017-02-07T20:17:53","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T00:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vahumanitiesconference.org\/?p=618"},"modified":"2017-02-15T18:01:07","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T22:01:07","slug":"2017-keynote-speakers-lauren-berlant-and-lee-edelman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vahumanitiesconference.org\/?p=618","title":{"rendered":"Lauren Berlant & Lee Edelman, 2017 Keynote Speakers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Shenandoah University is\u00a0very pleased to announce that Lee Edelman and Lauren Berlant will be giving the keynote talk at the 2017 Virginia Humanities Conference, focusing on their recent\u00a0book from Duke University Press,\u00a0Sex, or the Unbearable\u00a0<\/em>(2013). From the Duke UP website,<\/a><\/p>\n

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Sex, or the Unbearable<\/i> is a dialogue between Lauren Berlant and Lee Edelman, two of our leading theorists of sexuality, politics, and culture. In juxtaposing sex\u00a0<\/i>and the unbearable<\/i> they don’t propose that sex is<\/i> unbearable, only that it unleashes unbearable contradictions that we nonetheless struggle to bear. In Berlant and Edelman’s exchange, those terms invoke disturbances produced in encounters with others, ourselves, and the world, disturbances that tap into threats induced by fears of loss or rupture as well as by our hopes for repair.Through virtuoso interpretations of works of cinema, photography, critical theory, and literature, including Lydia Davis’s story “Break It Down” (reprinted in full here), Berlant and Edelman explore what it means to live with negativity, with those divisions that may be irreparable. Together, they consider how such negativity affects politics, theory, and intimately felt encounters. But where their critical approaches differ, neither hesitates to voice disagreement. Their very discussion\u2014punctuated with moments of frustration, misconstruction, anxiety, aggression, recognition, exhilaration, and inspiration\u2014enacts both the difficulty and the potential of encounter, the subject of this unusual exchange between two eminent critics and close friends.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

About The Keynote Speakers:<\/h3>\n
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Lauren Berlant is George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor of English at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Cruel Optimism, The Female Complaint,<\/em> and The Queen of America Goes to Washington City<\/em>, all also published by Duke University Press.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Lee Edelman is Fletcher Professor of English Literature at Tufts University. He is the author of L’impossible Homosexuel; No Future<\/em>, also published by Duke University Press; and Homographesis<\/em>.<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shenandoah University is\u00a0very pleased to announce that Lee Edelman and Lauren Berlant will be giving the keynote talk at the 2017 Virginia Humanities Conference, focusing on their recent\u00a0book from Duke University Press,\u00a0Sex, or the Unbearable\u00a0(2013). From the Duke UP website, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-78"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vahumanitiesconference.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vahumanitiesconference.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vahumanitiesconference.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vahumanitiesconference.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vahumanitiesconference.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=618"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/vahumanitiesconference.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654,"href":"https:\/\/vahumanitiesconference.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions\/654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vahumanitiesconference.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vahumanitiesconference.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vahumanitiesconference.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}